Great experience, wonderful opportunity to explore an entirely different part of the world, culture, lifestyle.

Cons

Extremely challenging physically and mentally; lack of organized projects and communications and administrative systems can be very frustrating. Are the PCV work and projects really effective and sustainable? Its difficult to measure this.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Peace Corps primarily tackles goals 2 and 3, which are great and very important. However, in order to be more effective PCVs for goal 1, it's important and each country office and CD try to collaborate well with existing NGOs and other development projects. Helping developing countries is NOT a competition, it's a world wide effort that needs to be collaborative.

Opportunity to expand network globally, while contributing to ground level development work. Learn a language, experience a culture, then come back and share the excitement of having done those things, with others. It's a dream job.

Cons

Still a government agency which can sometimes be bogged down in process and procedure, making it difficult to complete projects.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

You've gone to great lengths to recruit top talent from top schools, with varied backgrounds, representative of the American people... so trust them to better the HQ operations, as you trusted them in the field. Remember the goal of the Volunteer and apply the same principals to everyday work in HQ and all will be well.

Interning for Peace Corps allows you to learn more about the volunteers, the way the organization works, and to meet many RPCVs and hear their experiences.

Cons

Many of the lower-level employees are not very respectful of interns (however, the upper-level staff seems to really value your work).

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Make sure there is better supervision of interns- not only do we need a clear boss to make sure we get our work done and know who to ask questions of, but it's also helpful when applying for future positions to know who we should put down as the supervisor who can speak to our quality of work.